Posts tagged politics
Northwestern Notes
All the news that's not quite fit to print.
170 Years Ago Today, Abe Lincoln and a Rival Almost Dueled
Lincoln’s weapon of choice: the cavalry broadsword. Here’s the full story of the duel, and the sarcastic anonymous letters that caused it.
We find this funny, if only because politics has become so polarizing in today’s world, but we’d be hard-pressed to find an instance of one candidate ghost-writing letters meant to defame it’s target.
Wisconsin’s first major candidate to seek the White House
Paul Ryan wasn’t the first Wisconsin resident to seek an office in the West Wing. Wisconsin Senator Robert “Fighting Bob” LaFollette ran for president in 1925 and collected almost 5 million votes in a losing effort against Republican Calvin Coolidge.
Photos:
1. 1923 cover of Time. (Time)
2. 1906 political cartoon (Wisconsin Historical Society)
3. The 50th Congressional delegation from Wisconsin. La Follette is top left right, adjacent to Oshkosh’s Philetus Sawyer. (Oshkosh Public Museum.)
4. A 1911 cartoon of La Follette’s railroad reform (WHS)
5. An anti-La Follette cartoon from Life magazine in 1917. (WHS)
Wisconsin Republican budget man Paul Ryan gets becomes the next in line for the “Hey Girl” meme.
Girl…
Can’t tell a caucus from a primary? Don’t know why states have different systems for choosing delegates?
Tomorrow’s Fresh Air will answer those questions, and explain how reforms instituted since 1968 are changing the process of delegate selection. Guest: political scientist Josh Putnam from the blog Frontloading HQ.
(via tpmmedia)
Natural gas is the future for this country as a major fuel source. It is our ticket for becoming oil independent, if not energy independent.
However, if we do things like the Keystone pipeline, which people have some legitimate concerns about, but we decide to play political football with it and not make any decisions until after the November elections. We decide to further enhance the political football by saying it’s going to be under the auspices of Hillary Rodham Clinton to figure out. It’s a State Department issue all of a sudden instead of a DOE issue. That tells me our energy policy is still messed up here in the United States.
But as an economist, when you look at things like supply and demand, it’s very clear that natural gas is where we have to be going in the future. We see the economic benefits of it in Texas, Ohio, North and South Dakota.
5 things to watch Tuesday
Politico reckons that this may be Mr Santorum’s last stand: “If Santorum is ever going to offer a compelling case for staying in the race, the time to do it is Tuesday. He has a shot at winning two states, Minnesota and Missouri, which would provide a jolt of momentum at a time when Gingrich is flagging.”
The presidential super PACs: five takeaways
The first round of SuperPAC annual filings came in yesterday, and we at Sunlight have been digging through them since. Our reporting team has been blogging the reports as we digest them.
Below are five takeaway points, based on a Sunlight Foundation analysis of FEC filings for nine super PACs that raised at least $500,000 in 2011 and have spent money in the presidential election.
Appleton's Steve Kagen reportedly considering gubernatorial run
Madison-based blog Dane101 reports that former U.S. Rep. Steve Kagen, D-Appleton, is considering a bid in the recall election against Gov. Scott Walker. Kagen’s name, along with that of State Sen. Kathleen Vinehout, D-Alma, came up in notes taken during union endorsement interviews held in Milwaukee early in January.
See Dane101’s post for the rest of the story.
